It's 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility, deep in California's Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: the San Francisco of her youth and her young son, Jackson. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and casual acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and...

Children who have a parent in prison express their feelings of sadness, anger, worry, and embarrassment and suggest that talking to others and keeping in contact with the missing parent helps them deal with the situation.

"After "rotten bad year" on the mainland, eleven-year-old Jett returns to Newfoundland to spend the summer with his sprightly Grandma Jo (whose hair is dyed cotton candy blue to match her house), bringing along a shameful secret involving the betrayal of a friend. As summer unfolds, Grandma Jo nurtures in Jett his sense of caring for others while giving him space to breathe. Jett finds himself examining memories of his past like bits of sea glass-arranging...